The Usability and Safety Aspects of the Defibrillator - Essay Example

? The Usability and Safety Aspects of the Defibrillator in Terms of Human Factors engineering. The usability and safety aspects of the Defibrillator in terms of human factors engineering. The evolution of the world has been accompanied by new, varied concepts. Needless to say, such variations have been felt in the way sets of equipment are designed. As such, the manufacturing of sets of equipment has been persistently evolving. Initially, what appeared to matter so much, as far as the manufacturing of instruments was concerned, pertained to beauty and the size of the working of the instrument to enable it serve the intended purposes. In contrast, the transformations in the current, evolving world have changed the whole scenario. In general, this is clearly depicted by concepts such as ergonomics, inclusivity, and work safety. As if not enough, desirable work place environments has shaped the manufacturing process in certain ways, including the necessitation of incorporation of aspects pertaining to efficiency, as well as a reduction of stress at the work place (Broberg,1997). Indeed, in the current world, ergonomic concepts and quality and safety of the equipment are arguably inseparable. Ergonomics concepts are inclined on coming up with designs of equipment and devises that are suitable for human operations. Thus, the objective of ergonomic concepts is to foster productivity while fulfilling the health requirements. As such, the relevance of ergonomic concepts is most appreciable when designing products and equipment, as well as machines that contain interfaces that are not only reliable, but easy for use (Beauchamin & Hays, 1996). Generally, there are several techniques and tools that are often used as approaches of human factors in addressing safety issues. These include usability testing, forcing functions, and standardization and resiliency efforts. Human factors engineers often test new equipment and systems under the real world conditions in ensuring that unintended consequences of the new technologies are identified (Burns & Vincente, 1994). In most cases, usability testing can help in identifying workarounds. This paper seeks to discuss the safety measures in the design of each component in the automated external defibrillator (AED) with a focus on the reliability of the device in terms of bio-compatibility, mechanical failures, and electrical failures. Usability and Safety Aspect of the AED The automated external defibrillator is one of the portable electronic devices within the medical field that is used to automatically diagnose the potentially life threatening ventricular tachycardia and cardiac arrhythmias of the ventricular fibrillation in patients (Gliner et al. 1998). This device can treat these diseases through defibrillation, which is an application of the electrical therapy that helps in stopping the arrhythmia, hence allowing the heart to be able to reestablish effective rhythm (Walsh & Krongrad, 1993). The automated external defibrillator (AEDs) has simple visual and audio commands that make them simple so that they can be used for layman. It is worth noting that in order to rate AEDs as being reliable in the diagnosis of heart related diseases, there was need for manufactures to take into consideration safety measures while designing each of the AED components in making sure the reliability of this device in terms of mechanical failures, bio-compatibility and electrical failures is guaranteed (Walsh & Krongrad, 1993). As a safety measure, the AED is designed in such a way that it can be used effectively and safely without any previous training. This implies that the use of the device is not restricted to the trained rescuers though training is often encouraged for purposes of helping improve on the time to correct pad placement and shock delivery. As often the case, the AEDs can analyze the ECG rhythm of a victim and be able to determine if a shock is needed. The semi-automatic AED often indicate the need for shock, which more often than not, gets delivered by an operator with the fully automated AED being able to administer a shock without requiring the operator’s intervention. There are some of the semi-automatic AEDs that enables the operator to be able to override the given device and go ahead and deliver a shock in a manual way, independently of prompts (Gliner et al. 1998). Mechanical and electric failures In making sure the AEDs overcome mechanical, as well as electrical failures, they are made in way that they can protects against shocks (Walsh & Krongrad, 1993). In this case, they are designed in such a way that they have metal chassis upon which patients, as well as medical personnel can touch. They are also grounded in a way that in case, an electric fault takes place the current can safely flow to the ground (Gliner et al. 1998). Additionally, the equipment grounding is often tested periodically for purposes of ensuring no current can flow through the given ground conductor. The device also has low-leakage power codes, as well as insulating materials often used for purposes of reducing leakages in the current. For reliability purposes, the AEDs devices are often determined by the decision that is made during the process of designing (Cummins, Eisenberg & Hallstrom, 1985). Designing of AEDs goes through six stages: Identifying, designing, analyzing, verifying, validating and controlling. For purposes of identifying the device, detailed specifications, expected life, and operating conditions of the device are highlighted. Biocompatibility The investigation of any material has to involve an extensive biocompatibility performance testing using animals before implanting them in humans (Walsh & Krongrad, 1993). Most of the EADs leads are often similar to the pacemaker counterparts. For instance, the insulation materials used in defibrillation lead, do closely resemble the pacemaker leads either polyurethane or silicon. In most cases, silicon rubber is more suitable for the lead insulation given that it is characteristically a good flexible insulator, which is biocompatible, biostable and inert. This is because silicon has many components that have specific properties, which are mixed in a certain combination for providing the desirable characteristics (Walsh & Krongrad, 1993). Silica provides tensile strength that is flexible. The biocompatibility of AEDs devices is also boosted by the use of platinum. It is noted that platinum is often used in components such as implantable defibrillators, pacemakers, neuromodulation, stents and catheters devices. Characteristics associated with platinum making it suitable for such applications include its inertness within the human body, biocompatibility, electrical conductivity, durability and radiopacity. The use of platinum in making key components of the AEDs devices such as wire, ribbon, foil, and ribbon to sheet makes the devices to have high precision (Cummins, Eisenberg & Hallstrom, 1985). References Broberg, O. 1997. “Integrating Ergonomics into Development Process”. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics. 10:61-67. Burns, C., & Vincente, J. 1994. “Designer Evaluations in Human Factors Reference Data”. Proceedings in 12th Triennial Congress of International Ergonomics Association. 295-298. Beauchamin, M., & Hays, P. 1996 “Sunny Hospitals Expedite Recovery from Severe Depression. Journal of Affective disorders. 40(2):47-54. Cummins R., Eisenberg, S & Hallstrom A. 1985. What is “save”? Outcome measures in the clinical evaluation of automatic external defibrillators. Am Heart J. 112:1143–1138. Cordiner L., & Graves, J. 1996. “Ergonomics Intervention in plant Refurbishment”. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics. 19: 457-471. Gliner et al. 1998. Treatment of the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest with a low-energy impedance-compensating biphasic waveform and automatic external defibrillator. Biomed Instrum Technol, 33:634–648. Walsh C, Krongrad, E. 1993. Terminal cardiac electrical activity among the pediatric patients. Am K Cardiol,52:559–562. Read More